Ipsissima Verba
by macrauchenia
Summary: The very words themselves. Various drabbles revolving around a single word. Current word: Philter - a potion or charm supposed to cause the person taking it to fall in love. Merlin didn't have enough fingers to count how many times some ignorant sorcerer or narcissistic witch had tried to bring Camelot to its knees through the use of petty love spells and ridiculous poultices.
1. Hamartia

**Rating: **K+ (Unspecified character death)  
**Disclaimer:** I do not own any single part of the Merlin story. It all belongs to the glorious and amazing BBC network.  
**Authors Note: **This is what happens when I'm defining words online, and I become distracted by the "word of the day," which was very perfect today.  
Plus, I've always wanted to write a drabble. It's difficult, I tell you! I'll continue these as more interesting words appear.

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**Hamartia **- _a tragic flaw_

The others warn him. They know the identity of the true monster. It isn't the victim on the pyre; it is the hate and betrayal living in his own heart.

But he doesn't listen. Kings have no need to listen to mere advisors. Kings are always right. He reminds himself of this, so he'll never forget the lessons he's learned.

Even when he hears the cries, the pleas for forgiveness, he does not listen.

He ignores them when they beg for the man's life. When they beg for mercy.

Even when the cruel flame is lowered on to the dark wood, the king does not stop to think about how he is damning his once faithful ally. He does not question his decision, even as the straw crackles and smolders, and the man on the pyre tries not to show fear.

Kings must never be wrong.

It isn't until the air is filled with smoke and the smell of charred death does the king pause. Vividly remembering the bright years past and the dark, fresher memory, he questions his rash decision. Should he have waited? Should he have listened? How much of a monster was the man who was once the king's greatest friend?

The king glances to his son, who is completely hypnotized by the unfolding events. To the boy, another nameless sorcerer has been destroyed, and he can sleep peacefully at nights without fear. Camelot has been saved yet again. He has made the right decision.

Kings are always right; kings must never be wrong.

Especially through the eyes of their sons.

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I started writing this as an Arthur-centric piece, but as I dove a little deeper, it seemed like Uther too. Y'know, he must've been forced to execute some of his friends too. Take the case of Gaius, who was sentenced like a bazillion times. So I don't know who it ended up as.  
**Thank you for reading! **Hopefully I can be semi-regular with putting these up, since they're pretty fun and short to write.


	2. Inferior

**Rating: **K  
**Disclaimer:** I do not own any single part of the Merlin story. It all belongs to the glorious and amazing BBC network.

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**Inferior **_– lower in station or rank; less important_

Arthur found the bruises. Merlin wondered why he ever thought he could hide them from the king who noticed _almost _everything about his friend.

Gripping the manservant's wrist so tightly and twisting it just far enough that an inch further would cause the boy pain, Arthur studied the large green and purple welts with narrowed eyes.

"How?"

The boy fidgeted slightly in the king's grasp. Arthur would never hurt him intentionally; it was obvious by the way that Arthur was holding the manservant's arm in a relatively gentle way. But that didn't mean that the deeply buried scars weren't aching below the boy's pale skin.

"I fell."

The king let out a sigh, threw one last look at Merlin's arm, and released the boy's wrist. "Lord Aquitaine." It was not a question.

The boy drew his sore arm to him, trying to rub the bruise away with no avail. There was no point in arguing. "Lord Aquitaine is my superior. I must be subservient to him. He was right in his actions."

Arthur resisted the urge to run his hand through his golden hair. "He was my guest in Camelot. He had no right to treat you in such a way. Especially you, the king's manservant."

Merlin's eyes remained lowered, as if he were addressing an unfamiliar noble instead of his best friend for many years. "He is my superior," the thin boy repeated. "It does not matter who I am; I am inferior to him."

It pained Arthur to know that deep down a tiny part of the manservant was convinced that what he was telling himself was true. The elevated rank that Arthur had enjoyed and taken for granted for so long now seemed to be a cheated position when he realized how many lower, yet greater men suffered below him at the hands of noble tyrants. Even the threat of the king's wrath did not deter visiting nobles from exercising their authority on the "inferior" manservant to the young King of Camelot. Arthur studied his friend, who had done and lost so much for the king, suffering the entire time under the lowly rank of a manservant.

_I think it's time something is done about that._

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**Thank you so much to those of you who have read and reviewed :D  
**(I know this idea is kind of over done. Hopefully this was okay. It actually was the "spanish" word of the day, even though both parts were completely in English. I'm serious. Go to dictionary dot com and you'll see. The other word "true" [but as in righting a wagon o.O] was not as good)


	3. Agita

**Rating: **K  
**Disclaimer:** I do not own any single part of the Merlin story. It all belongs to the glorious and amazing BBC network.

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**Agita **– _anxiety; agitation_

"I don't want to do this, Merlin."

The manservant regarded the king with barely veiled surprise, marveling at the force that disturbed the same young man who had shown no hesitation when faced with an immortal army.

"I don't know what you're so worried about, Arthur… It's just a formal dinner."

"What if they don't like me?"

Merlin blinked once, then twice. "Um, what? Who?" was his eloquent reply.

"The nobles. What if they don't like me?" Arthur repeated. The blonde king glanced from side to side, looking for an answer scrawled on the walls. "This'll be the first time I address them as their ruler."

Merlin was still confused. "Why wouldn't they like you, Sire? I mean, you've known them since you were a boy. At least that's what you told me."

"But I was a _prince _then. Now I'm their _king_."

"Is there a difference? In my opinion, they're both incre—"

"_Yes, Mer_lin," Arthur snapped at the boy. The ceremonial robes that he had been forced in by Sir Geoffrey were incredibly stuffy and itchy, and his building nerves were also not helping the situation. "There's a difference. If I mess up as king, I can't just play the foolish prince and wait for my father to fix it." The young man was quiet for a moment.

After a long pause, Merlin glanced back over at the worried king. "I think you'll make a great king," he whispered. "And your subjects do too."

Arthur only nodded, but he looked visibly relieved. Noticing an unpolished button on the king's cloak, Merlin reached out to clean it—

Only to have the king shrug away and scratch at the unpolished button.

"What was that for?" Merlin almost looked hurt that the king had rebuked him so.

"What? Oh, sorry," Arthur waved off the entire exchange with a flip of his hand and an irritated shake of his head. "This outfit…it's so itchy," he explained. Arthur twisted again, scratching viciously at the same shoulder. "I don't know why I have to wear it. It's horrible, Merlin."

"Kings are supposed to make sacrifices for their people."

Arthur didn't quite catch his manservant's sarcasm, instead scratching a particularly awful itch by his collarbone. "At least I know why my father was always so irritable," the young man muttered with a dark expression. "He had to wear these horrid clothes all the time."

One of Merlin's inky eyebrows rose. "Yes, Sire, I'm sure _that's _the reason why."

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These are getting longer everyday D: Hopefully you guys are enjoying them. I can't believe I'm 3 for 3, daywise. I'm actually getting pretty good words each day. Is this helping out your vocabulary? It's helping mine xD  
**Thank you to all who have read, reviewed, favorited, and followed!**


	4. Thanatopsis

**Rating: **K - A little bit of Merlin angst, I guess...?

**Disclaimer:** I do not own any single part of the Merlin story. It all belongs to the glorious and amazing BBC network.

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**Thanatopsis** - _a view or contemplation of death_

"Arthur, there's something you must promi-"

The King of Camelot looked up from his papers and suppressed a scoff. "Don't tell me you're going to make _me_ promise to do something for _you_. Have you still not figured it out that I am your _king_, Merlin?" He returned to his work, shaking his head and wondering how one could still be so dense.

"Please, you must promise." Something in the young man's voice caused Arthur to look back up. He glanced over to see his manservant staring unwaveringly at him by the window. Although the boy's expression was relatively blank, his light blue eyes were sad and pleading.

Feeling a slight prickle of apprehension, Arthur exaggerated a sigh and pushed his work aside. "What is it that you want, Merlin? A day off for Christmas? A signed guarantee that I'll stop throwing thing at you—even though you clearly deserve it for coming up with stupid things like this?" Arthur's raised eyebrow waited impatiently.

The boy turned his pale face to look out the window. "When I die-"

"Wait a second-if this is about that run in with Morgana a few days ago, Gaius said you recovered completely. Don't tell me _that_ worried you." Arthur watched his manservant carefully, finally starting to realize that the boy had been acting strange ever since the two had apprehended Morgana alone in the forest a few days ago. Though they had gotten away with quite a few scratches, Arthur simply assumed that Merlin was used to that sort of thing. _He has been my manservant for several years, after all._

For a brief moment, the only sound in the royal chambers was the soft pattering of the rain against the glass window.

"It's not about that," Merlin murmured quietly, finally deeming it safe to speak again. "I just," he hesitated. "When I die, I..." _I don't want to be burned on a pyre like a villain, like an enemy. _Merlin closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against the cool glass. He didn't want to be remembered in history as a monster or an evil sorcerer. He didn't want to be cursed in death like Freya, Lancelot, and his own father had been. He took a deep breath to steady himself, but suddenly the words were pouring out of his mouth like an unstoppable flood.

"I don't want to be thrown on the side of the road by some unmarked grave. I don't want a pile of stones to symbolize who I used to be."

Arthur was shocked and slightly horrified by what was coming out of the boy's mouth. "You would be brought back to Camelot for a proper bur-"

"I don't want to be put in some crypt or buried underground in a meadow." Merlin took a deep breath, biting the inside flesh of his mouth to keep his eyes from burning. "When I'm gone, I don't want anything to mark where I am or who I was."

"Certainly we can talk about this later, Merlin," Arthur tried to reason with the young man. "It's not like you're going to die anytime soon." The King of Camelot forced a fake laugh from his dry mouth. "I mean, you don't do that many dangerous things as the king's manservant."

Merlin carried on with his death request, as if he didn't hear Arthur's bad attempt at humor. His voice was much quieter, so soft it could barely be heard over the steadily loudening pound of the raindrops against the window. "A big lake would be nice. You could even ask Gaius where—he knows the perfect place," the boy was murmuring as if he was talking more to himself than to his king. "I'd like to be put in a boat, and pushed off from the shore."

Arthur was quiet for a moment. "Tradition has the boat being set on fire. Would you want that too?"

If Arthur didn't know any better, he'd say the boy's expression morphed into a look of pure horror. But it was gone before the king could search his face again.

"No," Merlin whispered hoarsely. "No fire."_ I'm not going to die that way._ He looked back at his king and forced a smile. "Just in case, right?"

The blonde stared, completely bewildered, at his friend. "Just in case," he echoed slowly.

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What is proper characterization? And where can I find it? D:  
This shows how rusty I've become with writing Merlin. I'm trying to get a few of these out in order to gain a feel for the characters before I dive back into my multi-chap stories again. So sorry for going on an unannounced hiatus D:  
**Thank you so much for reading! Please offer criticism of all kinds!**


	5. Philter

**Rating: **K  
**Disclaimer:** I do not own any single part of the Merlin story. It all belongs to the glorious and amazing BBC network.  
**Authors Note: **Thanks to all of you guys who are still here! Don't worry-everything is fine with me. I've just been missin' the inspiration bus lately D:

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**Philter** - _a potion, charm, or drug supposed to cause the person taking it to fall in love, usually with some specific person_

Merlin didn't have enough fingers to count how many times some ignorant sorcerer or narcissistic witch had tried to bring Camelot to its knees through the use of petty love spells and ridiculous poultices. One time the boy decided to take a count of how many times in a month he had to reverse the maddening effects of the love enchantments: twice for Arthur, once for Uther, once for Gwen, and even once for Gaius (_Oh, _that_ had been a sticky one_, the boy would later recall with a shudder). When it came to spells cast by the most lovesick of sorcerers, Merlin considered him a master at shattering "true love."

However, for one so knowledgeable about the more romantic side of dark magic, he was pretty poor at spotting the warning signs that _he_, the son of the last Dragon Lord and the legendary Emrys to the Once and Future King of Albion, was being enchanted by the same elementary charm that had convinced Arthur a few days ago he was in love with an ogre. So when a raven haired girl with striking emerald eyes began her employment as a mere serving girl at the palace, Merlin was instantly smitten. And proceeded to tell her nearly all of the castle's secrets.

Oddly enough, it was Arthur who first noticed that something was wrong with his usually insolent, often daft manservant. _The poor idiot is _humming _for God's sakes. _Although the cheery company was infinitely better to Merlin's expected grumbles and complaints, the constant sonnet composing was starting to grate excruciatingly on the prince's final nerve. The regular disappearing acts Merlin would pull at the most inopportune times did not please Arthur either. Once, the prince even had to draw his own _bath _when Merlin failed to show up one day.

This unforgivable act put the prince in a foul mood for the rest of the day. In fact, Arthur was so annoyed that the next time he saw his love-struck manservant he ripped apart the fragrant wreath of daisies that had resided around Merlin's neck and tossed the crumpled blossoms into the fire. The prince didn't even pause to watch as the delicate petals shriveled up in the flame with a puff of midnight smoke. He only scowled at his bewildered manservant as he racked his brain for a suitable punishment.

Merlin spent the next three days in the stocks, blinking dazedly and wondering why the air smelled so deeply like fresh-picked wildflowers.

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What is this? A completely happy and light drabble? Be prepared-the next few will be _dark _D:  
**Thank you so much for reading, reviewing, favoriting, and following! **


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